If the candidates can hit their fundraising and new member signup requirements, it will be former MP Mike Morrice vs. long-time party organizer Nira Dookeran.
Thank you for your perspective, Jeremy; you don't seem to have a personal axe to grind, which is very refreshing.
And thank you for reminding your readers that the Green Party of Canada has been around for more than 40 years. I signed up in 1983, was the candidate's agent in their first-ever run in a by-election that same year (Betty Nickerson, she had to run as an Independent), and was a GPC candidate myself in '84.
Elizabeth May is now so powerfully associated with the Greens in the public mind that a lot of people seem to think she started the GPC. But back then, she was an environmental lawyer in Halifax, and then went to work for Mulroney's Environment Minister Tom McMillan in 1986. Of course that was when there really was such a thing as a Progressive Conservative.
Thanks for this primer of a leadership campaign that seems even less impactful than the coronation of Avi Lewis. First of all, the ballot's inclusion of "none of the above" implies that the Green Party leadership believes internal elections are less of a decisive poll than a performative indicator and perhaps even an escape route to some kind of receivership in case of a disputed result. Second, what guarantees exist that May won't undermine the results like she did last time? Thirdly, why is there no mention of Dmitri Lascaris or Yves Engler? I feel like a discussion of a third-party campaign is missing something without raising the interventions of either or both of these Green-adjacent activists.
"None of the above" has always been there on the preferential ballots as an important gauge of the connection between the voting members and the party insiders, and to serve as a warning signal to the latter.
It is in the nature of the Green Party that its own rather small "big tent" has always included strongly-outspoken activists butting heads (and egos). Much of the earliest membership, in both federal and provincial parties, migrated to the Greens from wildly different directions out of frustration with the existing choices, including many totally new to electoral politics. Eco-feminists, deep ecologists, survivalists, libertarians, Marxists, Trotskyists, Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, eco-socialists, pacifist Greenpeacers (Bob Hunter, Jim Bohlen) and those who believed in more radical direct action (Paul Watson). Debates could be ferocious and consensus decision-making often seemed impossible. But it was always attempted, sometimes for hours, in preference to simple majority voting.
Lascaris and Engler, along with others over the years, have been following in a well-worn tradition.
Not sure what you mean by May undermining results. Can you explain?
Thank you for your perspective, Jeremy; you don't seem to have a personal axe to grind, which is very refreshing.
And thank you for reminding your readers that the Green Party of Canada has been around for more than 40 years. I signed up in 1983, was the candidate's agent in their first-ever run in a by-election that same year (Betty Nickerson, she had to run as an Independent), and was a GPC candidate myself in '84.
Elizabeth May is now so powerfully associated with the Greens in the public mind that a lot of people seem to think she started the GPC. But back then, she was an environmental lawyer in Halifax, and then went to work for Mulroney's Environment Minister Tom McMillan in 1986. Of course that was when there really was such a thing as a Progressive Conservative.
Thanks for this primer of a leadership campaign that seems even less impactful than the coronation of Avi Lewis. First of all, the ballot's inclusion of "none of the above" implies that the Green Party leadership believes internal elections are less of a decisive poll than a performative indicator and perhaps even an escape route to some kind of receivership in case of a disputed result. Second, what guarantees exist that May won't undermine the results like she did last time? Thirdly, why is there no mention of Dmitri Lascaris or Yves Engler? I feel like a discussion of a third-party campaign is missing something without raising the interventions of either or both of these Green-adjacent activists.
"None of the above" has always been there on the preferential ballots as an important gauge of the connection between the voting members and the party insiders, and to serve as a warning signal to the latter.
It is in the nature of the Green Party that its own rather small "big tent" has always included strongly-outspoken activists butting heads (and egos). Much of the earliest membership, in both federal and provincial parties, migrated to the Greens from wildly different directions out of frustration with the existing choices, including many totally new to electoral politics. Eco-feminists, deep ecologists, survivalists, libertarians, Marxists, Trotskyists, Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, eco-socialists, pacifist Greenpeacers (Bob Hunter, Jim Bohlen) and those who believed in more radical direct action (Paul Watson). Debates could be ferocious and consensus decision-making often seemed impossible. But it was always attempted, sometimes for hours, in preference to simple majority voting.
Lascaris and Engler, along with others over the years, have been following in a well-worn tradition.
Not sure what you mean by May undermining results. Can you explain?